"... willingness to take a moral stand, to accept risk and ridicule, [is] the cost of the moral life." -- Chris Hedges
Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will -- Schopenhauer. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Last Night

Last night I was playing around with Wikipedia. I've been hanging around there for the last month or so, reverting vandalism, making minor edits to articles, and generally making a nuisance of myself. I had intended to go to bed by 12:30 or so, but got sucked in (working on an article about my friend Lief Jonker's film "Darkness: The Vampire Version") and around 2:00 went outside with our friend and housemate F to have one last cigarette before turning in. As we stood and sat there talking in low tones, a guy walked past on the other side of the street.

Then he turned around, went to my neighbor's vehicle, punctured the tire with one swift sidearm swing, and ran. F and I sat there for half a minute, essentially frozen. F called out "Hey, what the f%$#?" but the vandal didn't hear him. I don't think he was even aware we were right there watching him. I called the cops. After talking to them for a while, I got a ride in the back of a cop car to go ID a suspect. I'm 80% sure it was the same guy (I didn't see his face, but his clothes and build and hair were the same) and F was 90%. Turns out he was underage, drunk off his ass, not a local, and had a warrant out.

One vandal off the street. My neighbor wasn't happy this morning, but at least the cops caught the guy -- and the neighbors will be pressing charges. Hope I don't have to testify in court, though. I will if I have to. I feel bad for my neighbor. I helped him with the tire and drove him to the tire store so he could get a new one.

I know why I didn't chase the guy down myself -- he was armed and had already shown himself to be violent, at least to innocent vehicles. I'm not going to risk getting stabbed over a tire -- "I'm a lover not a fighter" -- but for a few minutes, at least, I felt like a bit of a coward.

But justice, I think, will be served. And boy am I sleepy this morning.